1. Field of the Invention
The present general inventive concept relates to a method and apparatus to manage a service level agreement (SLA) through a network.
2. Description of the Related Art
A service vendor promises to provide a customer with a service over a level negotiated through a service quality contract, which is referred to as service level agreement (SLA). The service vendor evaluates a service level while periodically monitoring the performance of a product that the service vendor sold. When it is determined that a current service level does not satisfy the SLA, the service vendor is requested to take necessary maintenance action with respect to a service item having a problem.
A service level management (SLM) system to efficiently perform SLA management has been studied. In a current SLM system, a service level provided by sold products is monitored through a network and a result of the monitoring is statistically analyzed, thereby automatically generating a service level report. The service vendor finds any problems or errors in service items through the service level report and takes necessary action. According to the current SLM system, since the service vendor passively recognizes a problem and then takes necessary action, there is no immediate response to the problem. Also, when a new SLA item is added or deleted after a contract is made, a change of SLA items is not reflected in SLA management software that is installed on the SLM system. Thus, the changed SLA item is manually managed until new SLA management software capable of monitoring the changed SLA items is developed.
Accordingly, there is no conventional method of automatically managing the errors and/or problems associated with SLA items.